Investors

Bharat Banka

Bharat Banka is Senior President at Aditya Birla Group. As founder CEO, he had set up Group’s Private Equitypractice from a scratch, built the team and raised $200 million to make it one of the largest rupee PE funds. With diverse experience of 22+ years in businesses, strategy, principal investing, M&A, post-merger integration, capital markets & CXO-level roles, he earlier played pivotal role in expanding the Group through complex M&A and organic means as Head – Group Finance. Prior to that, he handled capital markets, M&A advisory and serviced PSU clients at Indian JV of J. P. Morgan with ICICI.

He sits on National Committees of CII & FICCI on Capital Markets and Private Equity, is an elected board member of IVCA and is on Academic Advisory Committee of BIMTECH, Noida.He mentors entrepreneurs as a member at Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels and as Charter Angel at Venture Nursery and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

Anoop Mathur

Anoop Mathur is the President of Centre of Recognition and Excellence. Prior to founding Centre of Recognition and Excellence he was the Chairman and Managing Director of Pacific & Strategic Media (PSG – India), a niche and leading Media Company specializing in the ICT domain. In this capacity, Anoop had the P&L responsibility for India and Middle East operations. Through his extensive professional experience in the Healthcare, Insurance, Financial Services, BPO & IT Enabled Services business verticals, he has held senior positions with leading global organizations such as Prudential, Capita, ICICI OneSource, and United Healthcare. Prior to joining the corporate business environment, Anoop was engaged in providing C& F services to the Government and State Trading Corporation of India.

Sanjay Mehta

Sanjay Mehta is an engineer & first generation serial entrepreneur who turned Investor. He have been building technology companies after his graduation. So in 1993 started his journey as entrepreneur & have never worked for or under anyone. His focus market is India. His success has been in building software product for B2B space in both SME & Enterprise segments.

He had good experience learning with his failure in dot com times. Currently he had angel invested in 23 Start-up companies in diverse sectors. He is a active member of Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, B2B 1K Ventures & Venture Nursery which helps him to source deals.

Indian Angel Network, Lead Investors

Arihant Patni

Arihant Patni is an entrepreneur, corporate executive and financial advisor who has extensive experience in computer software, business development/marketing and IT infrastructure. Arihant received his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Chemical Engineering. He continued his education at Babson College, where he received his Masters of Business Administration (Magna Cum Laude), with a dual concentration in entrepreneurship and finance. He then received a separate Masters Degree in Statistics from Columbia University, with a concentration in quantitative finance. Arihant began his career at Patni Computer Systems, where he had a broad exposure to the business of the company, including consulting positions in the computer software and human resources departments, as well as being a business development and marketing executive. In the latter capacity, Arihant was part of a team dedicated to the European market and worked to increase global brand awareness for the Patni companies and products. Subsequently, Arihant worked as a Business Strategy Consultant for Fidelity Investments in Boston, where he led a finance systems strategy project for one of Fidelity's companies, involving business process analyses, systems re-design and solutions recommendations. Arihant was Vice-President for Business Development for Raay Software, Inc., where he started the U.S. office for a European software product company operating in the healthcare space, developed the marketing campaign for the United States and conducted strategic market analysis to build brand awareness.

Arihant is actively involved in the management of Patni Financial Advisors, a wealth management company that advises high net worth families on a wide range of investment options as well as Bodhi Global Services, a legal support services company. He is also on the Board of Directors of Nirvana Venture Advisors, a venture capital fund with focus on the internet space in India.

Vishwanath Ramachandran

Vishwanath Ramachandran is a founding executive at GupShup, associated with the company since its inception. He is responsible for the definition, development, deployment and support of GupShup's products. These products helped the community scale to over 60 million users, and the messaging platform scale to over 3 billion messages a month. He also oversees the overall operations of GupShup's business. Prior to GupShup, Vishy worked for the world's first social network Friendster in engineering management, responsible for their instant messaging product. He also worked at enterprise software companies NextLabs (on document security and policy compliance solutions) and Siebel (engineering management of the web server tier). Prior to that, Vishy helped build video on demand software as well as a web browser for TV at Moxi Digital (acquired by Digeo Inc.). He started his career at Netscape Communications Corp. as a software developer on the web server, Java and JavaScript engines, and progressed into engineering management roles in Netscape's browser and instant messaging products.

Vishy has a Master's and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University and a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay. His research has been published in international journals and conferences and his prior work in the industry has been granted patents.

Vishal Khare

Vishal Khare is a Well-groomed Business Leader with experience of around 16 years. Have spent time at all major markets in Indian Subcontinent including, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Srilanka etc. All round business management experience in software, hardware, SAAS services in Enterprises and Corporate and Mid Markets.

Key strengths include Innovation, Improvisation, Lead by Example and Integrity which are coupled with strategic mind-set to deliver successful planning and execution frameworks in all walks of business. To name a few - Business Management, Sales Management, People Management, Channel Management/Marketing, Product Management & Service/ Support. These strengths have led to a lot of external & internal achievements and accolades.

I hold a MBA degree and have a passion for travelling, gadgets and technology.

Currently working for Citrix Systems in India and is responsible for planning and executing sales strategies for the emerging segment for Citrix in India Subcontinent. Having joined Citrix in 2000, I have handled several challenging roles in the organization and have been instrumental in shaping and driving the large account, mid-market and channel business in India. Have been a part of the internal revenue achievers club for the past 12 years.